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Riptide Replicator seems really awful, it requires for a cat, so your hoping it's at least 5/5 or more, which means the initial cost is =5 + = . That's a terrible conversion. I understand you want to build your board position since your cats pump each other, but Riptide Replicator is not the way to go.

Stir the Pride is way too high a CMC for it's modular (or Entwine) abilities. I would take that one out.

Bloodline Shaman I assume is trying to help the draw, which in turn kind-of helps the Bonehoard as well, so let's go with that for now, but is an Elf, not a cat. Creative budget drawing at least.

Qasali Slingers is a nice control for Artifacts and Enchantments, plus hes a 3/5 reach.

Hungry Lynx, originally I thought this guy would be amazing, but all he does is create problems (deathtouch rats), and I've never had him successfully pump my cats before being removed. I took him out, mechanic didn't work.

Whitemane Lion combos infinite with lost of , but enablers might not work in the budget. There is Infinite creature (several) enablers, Infinite Ramp enablers, etc. Him and Fleetfoot Panther run the show. Could be an interesting way to get some combo going, not sure how combos are viewed in your budget pod.

Lost Leonin can also put some infect pressure on people, but without support (like Silverblade Paladin/Ajani, Caller of the Pride/that white enchantment that gives 1 creature double strike/etc to make him a single hit kill. He's still a 2 hit-Eminence win-con though. Unless no infect allowed, he will eliminate players just with Eminence on occasion. If you can Grappling Hook him or enable doublestrike elsewise (like Raksha Golden Cub). Often he comes out early enough. It's my initial strategy in my Arahbo, Roar of the World but I use mass-creature tutor.

1 month ago

Kaneki___Ken I assume most of the base card draw (I don't know the precon, but am assuming some of it is normal, non-enchantment-based card draw) and ramp is useable, all of the stuff you don't think will make a big difference. With Arixmethes, cheap ramp and card draw, Elvish Mystic/Brainstorm type effects, that can get you to Arixmethes and to get him the counters are what matters for a number of the cards.

2 months ago

Blade of Selves is incredibly powerful with Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith. You'll have to sac all the tokens it makes since they're all legendary, but you still get the ETB trigger from each of them. Being able to tutor up 2-3 pieces of equipment every turn is insane. Helm of the Host is another option; it gets you one token (and therefore one piece of equipment), but you get to keep the token. It also works really well with Arahbo, Roar of the World, giving you multiple instances of his +3/+3 start of combat trigger.

I'd also recommend Kusari-Gama, which is a sorely underappreciated Voltron option that can turn your big swinger into a one-sided board wipe when combined with Grappling Hook. Force something to block, then deal all that damage to every creature they control.

3 months ago

First strike/deathtouch is a great style for beginners- with the lifelinkers in there too it should do well in the current aggro meta.

I'll cover a few basics, and explain how this informs my reccomendations for cards. Competitive Modern is a turn 4 format- this means that games start ending at turn 4, and most 'game deciding' moments happen turns 2-6. This means that the most important spells are all cast on very little mana, and tend to have <3 cmc.

As it stands, your curve isn't too bad. You're sitting around cmc3- but most of that is in creatures. Specifically, creatures that want to fight creatures, and some which gain life to try and stop you getting killed by a swarm of lighting bolts. They don't do things the moment they are played, like most 3 drops have to.

The equpment are clunky and kinda awkward. They don't protect your creatures very well, and take 4ish mana to turn on. I'd take a look at artifacts that either give your creatures some resiliency for that cost, or provide card advantage. When you spend four mana, you need it to make an impact right away, because you are usually delaying yourself to cast it.

Second, sideboard. A lot of the decks you will see don't really care about their creatures, be it KCI combo, Scapeshift or tron. If you include Duress and artifact hate (Deglamer or whatever), and some graveyard disruption (Tormod's Crypt if you can find nothing else, but Ravenous Trap and Nihil Spellbomb are there), it'll go well.

Run a single Whip of Erebos in place of a longbow. More creatures getting used and more lifelink is good. It doesn't stack, but that isn't a huge issue.

Something like Ghirapur Orrery, Phyrexian Arena or similar instead of Viridian Longbow- you're going to get more payoff drawing cards than sniping creatures (most of the time). If your opponent is drawing more cards than you and killing your creatures, drawing an equipment is rough. Viridian Claw is the most playable, but without Puresteel Paladin type shenanigans, equipment need to be a smaller part of the list.

If you want to use Vengeful Pharaoh, include a discard outlet. The premium options are all over the site, but in this list something like Call the Bloodline will work- trading lands and dead cards for blockers and life is decent. It might also be worth looking at Molten-Tail Masticore- trading dead creatures for finishing a game is usually ok.

All told- your list is remarkably good, and will get a lot of laughs in casual play. The rest is seeing all the options out there and having fun tinkering to overcome your local meta to make it competitive.

From what you already have on the deck I would remove the following cards: Darksteel Ingot and Fellwar Stone are not necesary, I know both of these are fixing but you already have several lands with 2 colors and plenty of land fetching, you don't need these. Helm of the Host is great, I love this equipment but in this specific deck I am not sure if it is worth it. At least not for the commander imo, but to use it on the other creatures you have that offer utility, specially the ones with ETB or the "propaganda" creatures, then it is definitly worth to keep in the deck. Lightning Greaves is loved by so many people but I don't really like it much, I mean the 0 equip is great, plus the haste but I don't like shroud, yes it protects your crature but also screws you, while it is equipped you can't equip other stuff on the same creature or enchant it, etc... So if you have no other creature to swap it and allow you to target your commander again you are basicly screwed, I don't think it is worth to occupy a slot with it. Same goes for Whispersilk Cloak, blue already gives you unblockable if you want, not worth to have this with the downside of shroud, I'd rather replace it with Aqueous Form for example. Mask of Avacyn is nice to protect your commander but that's all it gives, if you need a slot for something this is a card I would remove. Vedalken Orrery... You don't need this, I know the ability is nice and quite tempting but in a voltron deck you don't really need this, I would only keep it if there was a free slot with nothing better to put in it, but even then I think I'd rather add some equipment or aura instead of this. Baleful Strix is nice but for 1 more mana I'd rather have Phyrexian Arena in play, much better. Dreamscape Artist is nice if you can play lands from the graveyard, with Crucible of Worlds and similar cards, which btw is a nice recommendation for the deck, Crucible of Worlds would help you get your lands back when facing land destroyers or milling decks. Also not sure about Emeria Shepherd, I mean you can deffinitly trigger her several times, but idk. I would test the deck with her and see how she does, if she doesn't seem to be useful most of the times I would replace her, for example for the same CMC I would prefer Herald of Leshrac, much more synergy with your commander. Jhoira's Familiar is nice too, but again it is also one I would remove IF a slot is needed for something else. I'm also not sure about Walking Atlas, I think most of the times it will be a dead card on the board because you won't have land cards in hand at some point, making him generally a wasted spot on the deck. Yes he can be great in some situations, but when putting cards in a deck you gotta try and put the cards that will be good in any stage of the game, not only sometimes, and this guy is one of those "sometimes" cards. I also think you don't need Disallow and Stoic Rebuttal. I mean as someone who likes to play blue, I know how good and safe it feels to have some counterspells but in this specific deck you don't need that many, I would even say none but since you are playing blue anyway, 1 or 2 could be helpful but no more than that, remember the goal of the deck is commander damage, you already have a lot of protection for your commander in equipments and/or auras, you don't really need counterspells to protect him, so if you need slots for other cards I would even say remove all counterspells. I'm not a fan of Detention Sphere in commander, yes if your opponents have the same card in play it is great, but most of the times it won't happen, again it is one of those cards that are good sometimes but not always so I'd take it out. Regarding your lands I don't like much of Submerged Boneyard and Forsaken Sanctuary, Sunken Hollow and Caves of Koilos would be 2 good replacements that are not very expensive. I would also remove Temple of the False God and put instead some basic land, I mean yeah that 1 extra mana is nice and can help you but I'd rather have 1 more basic land to fetch with the artifacts, etc.

To sum it up, I think this deck works best as a mainly W/B deck with a splash of blue, for some of the Propaganda effects it provides plus the evasion and card draw/selection. Other than that what you want for Voltron and to fetch lands you will find it on white, black and colorless.

One small note, I think you have way too many things to fetch basic lands, maybe you could cut down 1 or 2, not sure. That's one of those things that require some playtesting, never played with so many so I am not sure how good or bad it can be.

That's all I guess. I bet there are some more good things for this deck but I don't know it all, yet! I know some of my suggestions are not budget but you can just add them to the aquireboard section, for one day later if you decided to include them.

Helping you out with this deck hyped me to try and make one with Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, as a nod to your own deck. If you ever need anything don't hesitate to contact me here or on reddit.

4 months ago

Thanks for checking out my deck. Yours looks pretty good too.

I'm currently debating on whether to keep Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive or not in mine for the same reasons I think you should take another look at him. Currently including himself you have 7-ish creatures that he interacts with, some of which have flying. I didn't count ones that say "can't be blocked" already. He does do the all important task of making some ninjas unblockable like Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, Mistblade Shinobi, Skullsnatcher, and Walker of Secret Ways. So just something to think about, I haven't decided if his impact is good enough as of yet in my own deck...

You might consider a spot for Fireshrieker or Grappling Hook to double up on the ninja combat damage triggers. I found Fireshrieker quite handy back when I played a 60 card ninja deck. Of course if you don't want to deal with equipping Strionic Resonator essentially does the same thing.

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